Perfection

The sweet sound of wet slicing grazed past my ears.

It made the hair on my neck stand up on end and my skin crawl as skin was peeled back by a sharp, glittering blade and blood churned with flesh and muscle. It was sickening. The sight of thick, beads of yellow glued perfectly to red and cream skin. My arm had long since gone numb from the shoelace restricting blood flood between my shoulder and elbow. The fat had to go. I could hear murmurs, whispers, ghostly tones of disapproval towards me. The others had been spitting venomous words about my body and my complex to please had rightfully drugged me to do so. The fat had to go and my usual method of guilty eating and practically tearing out my stomach contents had done very little. The smoke of disgusting comments and disgusted stares still wafted into my mind and pushed me to try something more drastic.

Surgery and dieting would take too long, be too obvious and validate their claims on my weight. I needed something quick with instant results I could see and verify myself. I held the soft mound of warm fat in my hands, success, the disgusting internal lining had been removed. If the blood loss hadn’t made me so dizzy I would have cried out happily, but there was still work to be done. Sluggishly batted my red dipped hand around the cool tile floor of the bathroom, grinning slightly when it came into contact with a travel sewing kit. The threaded needle bit through my cold, numb skin with ease and I felt a pang of sour irony eat through my stomach. Arthur had taught me to sew correctly, even now my stiches were no less than surgical grade, and I was certain he was the source of the vicious rumours. His undying bond with me and parental worry now used to spread wicked things under the mask of ‘friendly concern’.

With both my arms now thin and sleek, save for the bleeding stitches and jagged slits, it was time to remove the main focal point for everyone’s hateful eyes. I prodded the thick layer of muscle and flesh of my stomach, running wet fingers over the shallow dips of abs and soft peaks of fat. The small bulge hung ever so slightly over my boxers, hardly enough to be noticed with clothes but apparently enough to called a health risk. I hissed at the first incision with the scalpel but smirked at what I imagined to be the end result. The knife ran with no resistance across to each pelvic ridge, up to my late rib and across, parallel with the first cut. The pain was white hot and searing but I continued, letting out a weakened cry when the door of skin was folded back to reveal the thick, vile, beads of lipid clinging to my internal organs and muscles. I couldn’t remove it all, I knew that the layer served as protection and insulation but a majority had to go. I poked and pierced the spongy layer, deciding how much to remove and how to do it.

I would have begun the self-operation in peace, if the bathroom door hadn’t swung open and my doe eyed brother screeched. My ears felt like they were full of water and I couldn’t understand his horror has he ripped the scalpel from me and hurried to dial a number into his cell phone. Why was he so concerned? Wasn’t I healthier now?

Wasn’t I now truly; America the Beautiful?